The Very Good Agency

Here come the Dino 5!

Fresh new all-star hip hop release, for kids!!

Prince Paul, the super-producer behind classic De La Soul albums 3 Feet High and Rising and De La Soul is Dead, has formed a new supergroup to release Baby Loves Hip Hop, a hip hop album for kids. Named The Dino 5, the group consists of Prince Paul, Chali 2na from Jurassic 5, Scratch from The Roots, Wordsworth from EMC, and Lady Bug Mecca from Digable Planets. Their album is a concept hip hop album for children, and in typical Prince Paul fashion, the album tells a story. A group of Dino kids (Rahzel as Teo Pterodactyl, Wordsworth as Billy Brontosaurus, Lady Bug Mecca as Tracey Triceratops, and Prince Paul as DJ Stegosaurus) encounter a very scary T-rex (Chali 2na as MC T-Rex) on the playground. Naturally they are terrified, and treat him poorly because of this. However, MC T-rex turns out to actually be a misunderstood giant, who only wants to play with other Dino kids. In the end, they reconcile, and get together to form the Dino 5 group to perform in the “Dino-school” talent show.

The album is full of positive messages and morals, and is a fantastic idea at a time when hip hop gets a bad name more often than it deserves. I myself am proof that the album can be enjoyed by hip hop fans young and old, with the storyline approach (narrated by grammy winning poet Ursula Rucker) and catchy songs being a huge hit with kids, and typical Prince Paul banging beats keeping the older more accomplished hip hop fans satisfied. At times the beats leave you wishing they weren’t wasted on a kids album. Although, He’s being doing it for so long now that you can be sure it won’t be the last you hear from him. The lyrics and storyline on the album are enjoyable, and 2nafish and the crew are as tight as ever on the mic. However, due to the kiddie-focus, it probably won’t rate highly on the replay scale. Unless you have kids, that is, who will want to hear it endlessly no doubt.

Check out the interactive website at www.dino5.com for more info, and keep your eyes (or your kids’ eyes) peeled for a possible cartoon series too!

You can watch the video for the group’s theme song, The Dino 5 Theme, below.

The Unified Tour

The night started with a rather adventure-like ride across the city, courtesy of True Live manager, Penny. I say adventure-like, where it was more an epic tour of Melbourne’s outer suburbs, as we fumbled our way through the Melways and missed numerous turnoffs. This resulted in the classic fashionably late entrance, which no one really seemed to notice anyway. The Winnie Coopers were thrashing out their own brand of Aussie hiphop when we got to the gig, voices hoarse from the energy they obviously put into their live shows. They got a great response from the crowd of students, who were particularly boozed for a Tuesday night fairly close to exam-time.

The Winnie Coopers

Next to hit the stage were the Funkoars, who again were well received by everyone involved. Having listened to their album “Greatest Hits” prior to the gig, I was well aware of what they would bring to the stage, and enjoyed hearing live versions of standout tracks such as Blackout and The Greatest Hit. Next up was True Live; the real reason we were there. Don’t get me wrong, I love hip hop, and Aussie hip hop has some real talents (and as a Kiwi I actually enjoy most Aussie Hip hop more than NZ hip hop). But the style brought to the table by acts that simply incorporate MC’s and a DJ playing a beat, often leaves me unfulfilled; especially if the sound system isn’t up to the challenge. I knew this wouldn’t be the case with True Live, however. Consisting of MC Rhyno, Thomas Butt (double bass), Tamil Rogeon (violin), Jesse Martin (cello), Joel Mammone (drums) and Thai Matus (keys); they dominated the stage from the minute they arrived. Their opening tracks impressed with intense intros building and building until they dropped into funky riffs and banging hip hop beats. Led by the fast flowing, smooth rhyming MC RHyno; the band were amazingly tight. RHyNO interacted well with the crowd hyping them up and getting the room bouncing in no time. At one stage he even had everyone sitting on the ground!

True Live with audience sitting on the ground (excuse the poor quality image, but it’s worth seeing right?)

The Crowd were treated to an exhibition of older classic’s like TV, Question This, and Keep Myself Awake, as well as a selection of new material being released on their new album due this year. Each of the artists performed outstanding solo’s on numerous occasions, with newest member Tim on Cello having time on stage by himself to display his amazing talent on a classical instrument adapted to fit comfortably within the jazz hip hop culture. Seeing True Live really reminded me of why I love hip hop and how quality makes a difference. Quality for True Live comes in the form of all of the artists being classically trained in their respective instruments; something that really shines through in the way they perform and gel together on stage.

Bliss n Eso

By the time they had finished their set i was ready to head home, confident that Sydney hip hop group Bliss n Eso (a group i knew little about) had no chance of up-staging them. After watching their opening few tracks the crowd loved them and really got into it, however, indicating that perhaps i need to listen to a bit more of their material.

All up a great evening of artists, with special mention going out to True Live for adding to Australia’s list of artists to keep an eye on in coming months and years. So we hit the road again and managed to find our way back without missing any turnoffs for a change. A particularly enjoyable evening thanks to True Live, and i’m sure there will be many more as I will be lining up as soon as their next gig is announced. Many thanks to Penny for taking care of us for the night, for more information on True Live head to their myspace

… Crack

Floetry … Damn

Having only recently heard of this amazing duet, we know little about them. What we know is that people need to hear this. So check out some of their appearances below…

Floetry – Everybody Heard

Meeting originally through their mutual love for basketball, Marsha and Natalie both studied at the Brit School for Performing Arts & Technology. Natalie came to attention in the music industry as a founding member of the performance poetry group “3 Plus 1” which was making plenty of noise around London, Birmingham, and Manchester. After inviting Marsha to join her on stage to perform at a spoken word night, together they cemented their signature style in a piece they had created called “Fantasize” (below). Seamlessly combining their talents for singing and spoken word, they deliver a powerful performance unlike anything in the world of poetry or hip hop today…

Fantasize – Floetry

Damn…

If your still reading this, then I can assume you like what you see here. Def Poetry Jam has been a source of inspiration for many people as well as artists we know. Well worth a look at, perhaps best introducing yourself through the appearances posted on www.youtube.com

Another breathtaking poet featured throughout Def Jam Poetry worth checking out is Black Ice seen below:

Damn

Tags: Poetry

RZA’s new project – WuChess

Monday saw the beginning of WuChess, www.wuchess.com a new website allowing you to play chess online . Founded by RZA of Wutang Clan, the site will also feature news relating to the WuTang Clan. RZA, 38, who is set to tour Europe again this year with the Wutang Clan learned the game of Chess when he was just 11, from the girl whom he also lost his virginity to. RZA explains the similarity of chess to the Wutang Clan “because its a game of war – it’s about battle. And Wutang was formed in battles, from challenging each other”.

Playing nearly every day (along with cousin and co-fouder of Wutang GZA) saw him take out the Hip Hop federation belt in San Fransisco last year taking on a mixture of rappers and martial artists. The conclusion seemingly to turn your passion into your business, much like his musical career. Under his alias Bobby Digital, RZA releases “Digi Snax” in July this year which is sure to be an eclectic blend of sounds from many nations as he always delivers. Check out the video for Tragedy below as an example of the RZA’s ongoing theme of battle, martial arts, strategy, and chess.

RZA, GZA, and Bill Murray in the collection of short films Coffee and Cigarettes

Opensouls Interview

Hey everyone, today we’re speaking with New Zealand’s Opensouls, a fine product from across the Tasman. The nine-piece collective is yet another Kiwi group making waves with energetic lives shows displaying their brand of funky hip hop laced with elements of jazz, reggae and soul.
So firstly, tell us a little about Opensouls for those out there who don’t know. How’d you form and who makes up the crew?

We formed out of the collapse of a former band 5th Floor. We have a horn section, keyboards, synths, guitars, bass, drums, percussion and vocals. Tyra Hammond – Vox Bjorn Petersen – Vox Julien Dyne – Drums Chip Matthews – Bass Harlin Davey – Sampler / Keys Steph Brown – Keys (currently in New York) Jeremy Toy – Guitar, Keytar Isaac Aesili – Trumpet, Percussion and a revolving horn section depending on availability.

Big things have been said about your live show, what can a crowd expect when you hit the stage? Any plans for a few shows on our shores in the near future?

We have plans to get across the ditch soon. We try and bring a party to every gig we play. It’s a big band and such a big dynamic that when it works it is a guaranteed good night out.

Your style of music is a product of so many different influences, obviously a result of the different tastes and experiences in music the various members bring to the group; where did it all begin for the Opensouls?

I’m not sure where it all began but myself and the drummer Julien Dyne share a similar love for soul and jazz music which is the backbone of our sound. Dare I call it jazz music but that is the music that keeps your mind thinking and continually challenges how you perceive music. An extension of that is artists like Tribe Called Quest, Premier and Pete Rock who took the jazz vibe and re-hashed it without ever making it sound like acid-jazz.

The musical community in New Zealand seems to effortlessly intertwine itself; how has this affected the way the Opensouls operate?

It effects us in a sense that there are heaps of people to help us out and to give us advice. Sometime that advice is a waste of time because you can only follow your own path but sometimes having so many people that you can potentially bounce ideas off of is very refreshing.

The various elements that make up your sound mean that you are not bound to any one genre when it comes to collaboration, are there any standout artists that you’d love to work with?

Thats a tough question. You never know how well you will work when collaborating until you are there doing it. I would love to get Liam Finn to produce a track for us. He is a stand out right now. Of course, if Chaka Kahn came knocking we wouldn’t say no. I have always wanted to play with Van Morrison. Soulful Irish music is big on my list.

Jeremy: Recently you picked up an award in New Zealand for Best Producer for your work with Hollie Smith on her album Long Player, how was working with her and do you have plans for anymore side-projects?

Working with Hollie on her album was a great experience for me. Hollie had set idea’s about how she wanted her album to sound so I took my role as the person to push Hollie outside of her musical comfort zone. She is a massive fan of Voodoo and Mama’s Gun and really wanted her record to be in the same vain as those records. I showed Hollie and the band the influences D’angelo, Erykah Badu, J Dilla and Questlove had when writing those albums and we tried to create an album that was not only influenced by these contemporary musicians but also by the musicians from the 60’s and 70’s that laid the foundations for the type of soul music Hollie plays. I am involved in other side projects. An Australian singer Tim Guy, he now lives in New Zealand. www.myspace.com/timguymusic Tim writes some of the heaviest music I have heard, really well crafted songs. I am also doing demo’s with the Sami Sisters www.myspace.com/thesamisisters . They are 3 sisters with an undeniable talent for writing songs that grab at your heart strings and kick you to the kerb.

Your debut album, Kaleidoscope (released in April 2006), was mastered in Los Angeles by Stones Throw Records master engineer Dave Cooley. Did you get to go over there for that? How did the connection come about?

The connection with Dave Cooley came about when we needed our first 12″ record mastered. I got in hold of him via the Internet not knowing he had done any work for Stones Throw, all I saw was a quote from J Dilla saying that Dave’s studio was good, that was enough of a selling point for me. As he was mastering the tracks we found out his history with Stones Throw and we were blown away that such a heavyweight engineer was helping us out. From our initial contact his studio now works for heaps of New Zealand acts incl. Mark De Clive-Lowe, Nathan Haines and Eru Dangerspiel.

Recent reviews have compared your sound to that of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Breakestra and Quantic Soul Orchestra; how do you feel about these comments? Are these artists that you draw inspiration from?

It is a hard comparison to take. Those artists are at the top of the food chain when it comes to Soul music. Yes, they are an influence but we are very aware that they have their sound and we need to develop our own sound, not just try and replicate what they are doing. I am more inclined to draw inspiration from outside the funk genre. I think there is more to learn from artists like Jeff Tweedy, Townes Van Zandt or Elliot Smith who communicate something through lyrics that only great songwriting can achieve.

As the Opensouls are involved in a variety of New Zealand crews (such as Che Fu’s The Krate’s, Ladi 6’s Verse Two, Recloose, Solaa and Tyra Hammond’s funk band The Tornado’s), is the Opensouls a side project for individual members, or are their other endeavours the side projects? How do this all work for the Opensouls?

This band is a crazy dynamic. I think we all will agree that when we get together and play live that it is the closest, best bunch of people that we could play music with. We all go out and work for other artists, as musicians we have to do that to keep our minds active but when we come off tour from those job and play as Opensouls we all realize that this is the one project worth putting in the hard yards for.

Hip hop is winding an interesting road through music history, what do you think of the current state of hip hop? And where do you feel that you fit on the hip hop spectrum?

I don’t know much about the current state of Hip Hop. To me there is always going to be a stand out release that may fit in to the Hip Hop Genre but its always something a bit left of field. Madlib is still ruling, Common seems to be hanging in there, Erykah Badu’s new album captured the vibe. There are some amazing things happening in Europe but it is more on the techno side of Hip Hop. As for what is on television top 40, I couldn’t care less. I think Hip Hop is in a good position as far as where it sits in the industry. It needs to be an underground music, it needs that constant low hum that works away while the top 40 slowly eats itself and decays.

What’s next for the Opensouls crew? New albums in the making? Future tours on the horizon?

We are working on our next record. We have a 7″ about to be release which will get to Australia in select vinyl stores, Northside Records etc. Hopefully if the Australian radio and television stations are nice to us you will hear our next single “Dollars” on the airwaves.

You can check out more of Opensouls at:

www.myspace.com/opensoulsspace

Tags: Interviews